Getting tired of writing blog post titles.

We’re in our last stretch between spring break and going home, so classes are “revving up” or something, but really life’s pretty regular. Here’s some stuff that I did recently.

My camera broke somehow. The “take the picture!” button fell off. So I left it (with LE 100) at a store for repair and they said two days. Two days later they said two days more. Two days later they said three days more, so I have a feeling the don’t really know what to do. Just realized this was even before the match, so it’s old news. Still have to take care of it. I registered for classes at Midd in the fall. They’re seminars “Political Islam” and “Terrorism,” advanced Arabic, and “Anthropology of human rights.” Also inquired into Arabic tutoring and Mecham researching for some interesting sources of income. We had our first weekly soccer game in a few weeks, where I run around and try to not touch the ball as often as I can and usually it’s pretty fun. That night Jade and I had a wonderful dinner at the much raved about Greek Club right on the water by the citadel. The steak was alright, and the beer was cheap! I spent the rest of the weekend doing some work and getting great moral support from Jade, SF, and Scott because of a loss in the family. Scott and I watched two Jason Bourne movies back to back. I talked with friends at home about reunion plans for my 3-week America tour. I practiced a song Naguib and I’ll be performing for the talent show.

These days I feel under-stimulated, which is a mixed blessing. I’d shifted into overdrive while I was teaching English and now that I have an extra 10 hours every week I find myself filling them with movies (watched the commentary to Anchorman last night…) and not studying Arabic so much. I’m ready to be done with studying in Egypt, but not ready to leave. So that’s the paradox. I’m really looking forward to study in Oman as a way to re-focus for almost another semester of immersion and start kicking butt again. But mostly these days I just want to slack and lounge around. Or I have really weird urges, like last night all I wanted to do was to bake a cake. So instead I watched the commentary to Anchorman…

Wednesday evening Scott, SF, Jade, Galen, Clara, Campion and I are headed to Cairo for a crazy weekend. I’m still figuring out how much of the touristy stuff I’ll do with them and how much I’ll do anything else that can keep me far the hell away from the pyramids of Giza. Also I’ll try to meet up with an old high school acquaintance studying at AUC… I’m excited to see a couple more historically significant things, hell even the Saqara step pyramid (“oldest man-made stone monument in the world”), but really I’m stoked to find some new restaurants and bars. Pretty sure I’ve exhausted the Alexandria “going out” scene.

I’d mentioned that I’m not ready to leave Egypt, but I am really ready to be home for a little while. I’m certainly not counting down but I’m not in denial either – I’m almost back in America.